Tag Archives: pacific

Beef Tartare in Kwangyang


Posted by Patrick Okens

November 12 – Dockside in Kwangyang, South Korea

We slipped out of Busan last night. When I woke at 0600 and peered through my window, I was excited by the profusion of ship and navigation lights and black clumps of land strewn to port and starboard. A real change after dawn’s early blankness on the open ocean the last two weeks. We were approaching the port of Kwangyang through a small coastal archipelago.

I put on my running gear and head down to the gym on C deck. On the “Kettler Satura E” elliptical machine, sweat dripping onto the console, I stride with my legs and push the “ski poles” back and forth. Out the window I see the very first edges of daylight on the Korean coast.  The effort turns into a 6k time trial, of course. I’ve made note of the result and can beat it. But only by upping the cadence and making myself look even more ridiculous.

Breakfast is another rare thing – literally. Beef tartare is a uniquely German concoction consisting of a plate of raw ground beef (think of it as cow sushi), with an egg yolk plopped on top, chopped onions, and capers. If you’re revolted, then you’re not German, for it is truly awesome with toast and tea. In between mouthfuls the officers start rhapsodizing about the jams and preserves they make at home and how they only buy locally-grown produce. Considering that the Hanjin Copenhagen, right now, is probably unloading potatoes from Portland, the irony is not lost on me.

It’s warm and sunny, so I go outside to read “For Whom the Bell Tolls” to its inevitably tragic conclusion. I pull out a molded plastic chair, set it so I can rest my feet on the railing, and look out at the harbour. It’s an odd setting in which to delve into a world of Spanish Civil War partisans, bullfights, and torrid passion. There’s the ship’s oily-metally whiff, the loud, hollow whoosh from the engine room, and the whirr and bang of the Gantry cranes as they pick up the containers. Our load has been lightened and Hanjin Copenhagen looks like a poorly-eaten corncob. Great gaps open up as I peer all the way down to the bottom of the hold, eight stories deep. Writing today, after finishing a Hemingway, is humbling.

We head into the East China Sea tonight.


Ship Comes In


Posted by Patrick Okens

November 11 – Docked in Busan New Port, South Korea

“Two, Eight, Five” says the Captain.
“Steering Two, Eight, Five.” answers the helmsman.

We reached the Korean coast early this morning, the bright floodlights of the fishing vessels like a string of pearls on the dark horizon. Short, jagged peaks appear, then a clump of skyscrapers.

“Two, Nine, Zero.” The Captain takes another drag of his cigarette.
“Two, Nine, Zero.”

Busan’s sea lanes are busy. Radar shows blips all round. I count more than three dozen cargo vessels. We also pass a new orange-painted oil drilling platform, then a small submarine.

“Two, Three, Zero. uh, I mean Three, Zero, Zero. Three, Zero, Zero.”
“Three, Zero, Zero.”

“Dead Slow Speed”
“Dead Slow”

The bridge VHF radio crackles and squawks in Korean and multinationally-accented English. A pilot boat speeds out towards us, performs a smart turn, and comes alongside. The pilot grabs the rope ladder, climbs up to the deck, then makes his way to the bridge. He’s wearing a blue uniform, shirt and tie, hardhat, yellow sunglasses, and an inflatable PFD. A handshake with the Captain and he takes command.

Hanjin Copenhagen glides past dark, moss-covered rock outcrops into a vast two-mile-long rectangle fringed with gantry cranes. A hard turn to port, then nudged dockside by a tug and our own bow-thrust engine. We’re at the Hanjin dock, with sister ships “Hanjin Miami” and “Hanjin Madrid” fore and aft, respectively. The crew replacements are waiting with their luggage. It’s not long before three massive pink-coloured cranes start slinging containers on and off. Behind them lies another vast Lego-block landscape, much bigger than Vancouver’s.

We’ll only be here for eleven hours and leave tonight at 2200, so there’s no time to go shoreside. No great loss, as the actual city is far from the port anyway. Technically, I don’t get to set foot on Korean soil, but I’ll still be able to say I’ve “been” to Korea. It’s warm and I’m sweating (Busan is roughly on the same latitude as Los Angeles); I briefly had Wifi reception on my Blackberry (thanks for the blog comments); and I’m walking funny since the ship’s dockside stability is throwing me off-balance.